Post by mistrali on Apr 2, 2020 6:59:54 GMT 10
Title: Tangled Webs
Characters: Lark, Sandry.
Rating: G
Warnings:: None
Summary: A tumbler walks into a shop.
Notes: AU inspired by Kit’s vastly superior Speculation. I don’t quite have the hang of preteen Lark and adult Sandry yet, so they’re probably a little OOC. Any lines you recognise are Tamora Pierce’s, not mine.
——————
Lark had grown up with yaskedasi, before her mother shut down her lodging-house in Khapik and took ship to Gansar. They were jewel-coloured marvels, fluttering about dressed in crocus, crimson, lilac, turquoise and other shades Lark didn’t have names for. Some of them had clucked and cooed over her, letting her play with their cast-off shawls.
That was what Lady Sandrilene’s shop reminded her of. Here were swathes of fabric: silks enough to outfit her whole troupe, bolts of cotton and linen from wall to wall. If she only had the coin, she could buy some… but she hadn’t more than twenty silvers to last her till Hearth Moon, two whole weeks away.
What am I doing here? she thought, head a-whirl. Not for the first time, she wanted to run out the door, back to the troupe, and pretend she’d only been out to the markets. She wasn’t even a junior seamstress. She was Lark Wrensong, fourth-highest tumbler of the Daryan Troupe tumblers, here for eight weeks. If the troupe master found out she was looking to be apprenticed to someone in Summersea she’d get an earful and no mistake. Coming and gawking at the fine wares in nobles’ shops wasn’t for the likes of her.
But still, she rang the bell timidly and waited at the counter. After what seemed an age, she became aware that there were hangings on the walls.
She crept closer to peer at the nearest one: a dancer, poised in a jump. How had the weaver captured the motion of his shoulders? The stitching on his well-muscled legs was perfect down to almost every detail, not like her own haphazard efforts at patching. If she tilted her head just so, she could see tiny threads making up each strand of scruffy hair, done in subtle shades of brown and black.
She was so absorbed that she didn’t notice one of the scarves from the little basket beside her had crept up her clothes until it coiled itself around her neck.
Frowning, she tugged at it and discovered it had stitched itself right into the side of her red blouse. Scarlet and gold intermingled as though they’d never been two separate garments.
Her neck and armpits prickled with sweat. There was magery here. Surely a silent alarm spell had gone off by now. She’d be branded a thief and sent to the docks.
“Who’s there?” said a voice.
Lark jumped. She turned her head, slowly, to find a blond man standing at the threshold of what she thought must be a storeroom. He took in her predicament at a glance.
Bare terror made her lips numb. “I - I wasn’t thieving, truly. The door was open… and the scarf…”
She closed her mouth just in time. Any further explanation would be useless. No one would believe a ragamuffin girl had got herself irrevocably tangled in a piece of priceless cloth of gold.
She braced herself for fists and talk of the Provost’s Guard. Instead the man frowned, opened his mouth, closed it again, and fled into the back room. Strain as she might, Lark’s sharp ears couldn’t catch anything.
The seamstress came out after what seemed a long time.
“My weaver tells me you’ve worked yourself into a tangle,” she said, blue eyes dancing with merriment. “Silk must love you, to cling so.”
Lark’s breath came thick and hot. She made herself take deep, slow counting-breaths to avoid a wheezing fit. Was the woman mad? How could silk love a person?
“I do apologise for the delay,” continued the seamstress, as though Lark was a real customer. “One of our suppliers wanted an advance payment. What’s your name?”
She moistened her lips, then tried. “Lark.”
“Please, Lark, sit,” said the seamstress, placing a chair nearby. “That was Comas you met just now. I’m Sandrilene. This will be easier if you just call me Sandry,” she said pleasantly.
Lark sat in the chair - or, fairer to say, her knees gave way - and, fear forgotten, she gaped. This was the famous Lady Sandrilene fa Toren herself, the duke’s great-niece and renowned thread-mage? With her hair caught in simple braids like a commoner? She was dressed in a pale yellow silk shirt and ivory breeches, like a man, without so much as a gold ring or an emerald hairpin.
Lark’s face must have given something away, for the lady looked down at herself and smiled impishly. “I know I don’t look the part,” she said. “We tend not to stand on formality in my family.”
“You’re not going to arrest me?” croaked Lark. “My lady,” she added belatedly, as though using the right title would save her from the holding cells.
“I try not to clap people in manacles as soon as I meet them,” said the lady drily. “It leaves such a bad impression. Besides,” she added more soberly, “I don’t need alarm spells to know when someone’s trying to steal from me.”
Lark had no idea what to say to that. Were all Emelanese mad, or only their nobility? In Sotat, even the smallest souk stalls were guarded. A real noble would have had powerful spells on all her artefacts.
She looked warily at the lady. “Can you help unstitch me?” she asked, deciding it wasn’t worth puzzling out.
“Well, Lark, since the cloth is yours, you’ll have to help me untangle these. Concentrate, and call the thread towards you.”
Lark fought panicked giggles - for one thing, that would set off her wheezes - and closed her eyes. Call thread… how did you call thread? It wasn’t a person, to be summoned by a name.
“Think of the blouse as a whole piece,” came the lady’s voice. Somehow it had grown low and soft, so that it blended with the hum of the loom shuttling in the other room. “See it in your mind, and then want it to come free. Feel for differences in the weave.”
Differences? That was easy. The blouse was her favourite red one, from Nidra. She had begged some discarded cambric from a tailor at one of the towns they’d stopped at, and sewn it into a blouse - and not any old blouse, but one with a collar and a section of white piping on the chest, which the gold now clung to assiduously. It had taken her weeks, especially as she’d done it in her rare snatches of free time.
“Open your eyes,” said the lady. Lark obeyed, and was surprised to find the last threads of the scarf dropping free of the red fabric. She stared at it for a moment or two, disbelieving, before remembering to stammer her thanks. It must be a mage thing, that was what…
“Now, what brings you here? I daresay it wasn’t scarves.”
“I came… to see if you — ah, I mean your weaver - wanted an apprentice,” said Lark, bracing herself for a refusal. Hiring season being over, most of the shops she’d tried had no need for extra hands.
Lady Sandry was still smiling, but was shaking her head, and Lark’s heart sank.
“Comas can manage on his own. But I occasionally take on students, if they’ve any aptitude for it, and an interest. What work have you done?”
Lark grabbed at the thread of hope. “I’ve done enough plain sewing, my la- Lady Sandry. Mending the costumes for the troupe.” Somehow the clothes she mended had had the least tears and lasted the longest.
Lady Sandry beamed. “I thought as much. So you do know how to set a stitch. But what about fine work — lace and silks?”
Lark shrugged, then remembered it wasn’t good manners and stared down at her hands. “I never did those,” she whispered.
“Because they thought you might steal them?” asked Lady Sandry, not unkindly.
Lark looked up. “No. Because I was the best at mending, and they always stuck me with it.” She made a face, and, startled, realised the lady was doing the same.
Characters: Lark, Sandry.
Rating: G
Warnings:: None
Summary: A tumbler walks into a shop.
Notes: AU inspired by Kit’s vastly superior Speculation. I don’t quite have the hang of preteen Lark and adult Sandry yet, so they’re probably a little OOC. Any lines you recognise are Tamora Pierce’s, not mine.
——————
Lark had grown up with yaskedasi, before her mother shut down her lodging-house in Khapik and took ship to Gansar. They were jewel-coloured marvels, fluttering about dressed in crocus, crimson, lilac, turquoise and other shades Lark didn’t have names for. Some of them had clucked and cooed over her, letting her play with their cast-off shawls.
That was what Lady Sandrilene’s shop reminded her of. Here were swathes of fabric: silks enough to outfit her whole troupe, bolts of cotton and linen from wall to wall. If she only had the coin, she could buy some… but she hadn’t more than twenty silvers to last her till Hearth Moon, two whole weeks away.
What am I doing here? she thought, head a-whirl. Not for the first time, she wanted to run out the door, back to the troupe, and pretend she’d only been out to the markets. She wasn’t even a junior seamstress. She was Lark Wrensong, fourth-highest tumbler of the Daryan Troupe tumblers, here for eight weeks. If the troupe master found out she was looking to be apprenticed to someone in Summersea she’d get an earful and no mistake. Coming and gawking at the fine wares in nobles’ shops wasn’t for the likes of her.
But still, she rang the bell timidly and waited at the counter. After what seemed an age, she became aware that there were hangings on the walls.
She crept closer to peer at the nearest one: a dancer, poised in a jump. How had the weaver captured the motion of his shoulders? The stitching on his well-muscled legs was perfect down to almost every detail, not like her own haphazard efforts at patching. If she tilted her head just so, she could see tiny threads making up each strand of scruffy hair, done in subtle shades of brown and black.
She was so absorbed that she didn’t notice one of the scarves from the little basket beside her had crept up her clothes until it coiled itself around her neck.
Frowning, she tugged at it and discovered it had stitched itself right into the side of her red blouse. Scarlet and gold intermingled as though they’d never been two separate garments.
Her neck and armpits prickled with sweat. There was magery here. Surely a silent alarm spell had gone off by now. She’d be branded a thief and sent to the docks.
“Who’s there?” said a voice.
Lark jumped. She turned her head, slowly, to find a blond man standing at the threshold of what she thought must be a storeroom. He took in her predicament at a glance.
Bare terror made her lips numb. “I - I wasn’t thieving, truly. The door was open… and the scarf…”
She closed her mouth just in time. Any further explanation would be useless. No one would believe a ragamuffin girl had got herself irrevocably tangled in a piece of priceless cloth of gold.
She braced herself for fists and talk of the Provost’s Guard. Instead the man frowned, opened his mouth, closed it again, and fled into the back room. Strain as she might, Lark’s sharp ears couldn’t catch anything.
The seamstress came out after what seemed a long time.
“My weaver tells me you’ve worked yourself into a tangle,” she said, blue eyes dancing with merriment. “Silk must love you, to cling so.”
Lark’s breath came thick and hot. She made herself take deep, slow counting-breaths to avoid a wheezing fit. Was the woman mad? How could silk love a person?
“I do apologise for the delay,” continued the seamstress, as though Lark was a real customer. “One of our suppliers wanted an advance payment. What’s your name?”
She moistened her lips, then tried. “Lark.”
“Please, Lark, sit,” said the seamstress, placing a chair nearby. “That was Comas you met just now. I’m Sandrilene. This will be easier if you just call me Sandry,” she said pleasantly.
Lark sat in the chair - or, fairer to say, her knees gave way - and, fear forgotten, she gaped. This was the famous Lady Sandrilene fa Toren herself, the duke’s great-niece and renowned thread-mage? With her hair caught in simple braids like a commoner? She was dressed in a pale yellow silk shirt and ivory breeches, like a man, without so much as a gold ring or an emerald hairpin.
Lark’s face must have given something away, for the lady looked down at herself and smiled impishly. “I know I don’t look the part,” she said. “We tend not to stand on formality in my family.”
“You’re not going to arrest me?” croaked Lark. “My lady,” she added belatedly, as though using the right title would save her from the holding cells.
“I try not to clap people in manacles as soon as I meet them,” said the lady drily. “It leaves such a bad impression. Besides,” she added more soberly, “I don’t need alarm spells to know when someone’s trying to steal from me.”
Lark had no idea what to say to that. Were all Emelanese mad, or only their nobility? In Sotat, even the smallest souk stalls were guarded. A real noble would have had powerful spells on all her artefacts.
She looked warily at the lady. “Can you help unstitch me?” she asked, deciding it wasn’t worth puzzling out.
“Well, Lark, since the cloth is yours, you’ll have to help me untangle these. Concentrate, and call the thread towards you.”
Lark fought panicked giggles - for one thing, that would set off her wheezes - and closed her eyes. Call thread… how did you call thread? It wasn’t a person, to be summoned by a name.
“Think of the blouse as a whole piece,” came the lady’s voice. Somehow it had grown low and soft, so that it blended with the hum of the loom shuttling in the other room. “See it in your mind, and then want it to come free. Feel for differences in the weave.”
Differences? That was easy. The blouse was her favourite red one, from Nidra. She had begged some discarded cambric from a tailor at one of the towns they’d stopped at, and sewn it into a blouse - and not any old blouse, but one with a collar and a section of white piping on the chest, which the gold now clung to assiduously. It had taken her weeks, especially as she’d done it in her rare snatches of free time.
“Open your eyes,” said the lady. Lark obeyed, and was surprised to find the last threads of the scarf dropping free of the red fabric. She stared at it for a moment or two, disbelieving, before remembering to stammer her thanks. It must be a mage thing, that was what…
“Now, what brings you here? I daresay it wasn’t scarves.”
“I came… to see if you — ah, I mean your weaver - wanted an apprentice,” said Lark, bracing herself for a refusal. Hiring season being over, most of the shops she’d tried had no need for extra hands.
Lady Sandry was still smiling, but was shaking her head, and Lark’s heart sank.
“Comas can manage on his own. But I occasionally take on students, if they’ve any aptitude for it, and an interest. What work have you done?”
Lark grabbed at the thread of hope. “I’ve done enough plain sewing, my la- Lady Sandry. Mending the costumes for the troupe.” Somehow the clothes she mended had had the least tears and lasted the longest.
Lady Sandry beamed. “I thought as much. So you do know how to set a stitch. But what about fine work — lace and silks?”
Lark shrugged, then remembered it wasn’t good manners and stared down at her hands. “I never did those,” she whispered.
“Because they thought you might steal them?” asked Lady Sandry, not unkindly.
Lark looked up. “No. Because I was the best at mending, and they always stuck me with it.” She made a face, and, startled, realised the lady was doing the same.
Maybe once we'd have seen it during Smackdown!